Hi all Coxer here with another review of some Team Yankee units, this time, it’s the iconic Hind Helicopter.
Firstly a little background – I got my 6 of these (you’ll notice only 4 here as 2 are in my FLGS shop window) and our aim was to get them all ready for the but Team Yankee Armageddon launch – 7 days away… this was not easy in the slightest!
Initial impressions were – wow this is a big model! I don’t think I’ve painted anything this size in a very long time, the photos just don’t do it justice, these are not a quick paint job. Next assembly I didn’t have any instructions – so I can say they really go together fairly intuitively – I really like how they come with the options for both retracted and down landing gear, I painted all mine in the same retracted option as I hoped that would be quicker. The only real moan that I have about the assembly is the rota blades, they’re pretty long so there is a bit of sag, and the central part of the rota is very fragile, only about half of mine made it through the build intact.
Having built them I decided to try the Anarchy stencils we got sent ages ago, I sprayed the whole model Desert Tan, then zenithal highlighted with MiG’s German sand Beige, before applying the stencils, then I applied the Green Khaki and hghlighted with Light Green Khaki. With that in place I then Applied a brown filter, before the brow panel line. After this I applied Vallejo panzer aces dark rubber to the Cockpit, and highlighted with that mixed with some medium sea grey before applying a black wash. I used some Vallejo neutral grey on the weapons and around some air intakes which I also highlighted with medium sea grey and black washed. After this I taped off the lower hull and applied Vallejo model air intermediate blue, and black lined.
The rota blades I applied Vallejo air dark grey and then did a 1:1 mix of that and highlighted towards the end of the rota, before applying some MiG blue filter to the rotas. Once this had dried I painted Averland yellow onto the rota tips with a couple of thin layers.
I then applied the decals – another slight problem with the kit is the lack of numbers, I had to cut some up so as to get enough numbers together to make them all roughly sequential. I haven’t weathered them yet, as I don’t yet know enough about helicopters to apply it in roughly the right places.
In game terms, I think I’ll be wanting a full squadron of these + assault troops, and the amount of firepower they have should make any US tank player scared, with both missiles, rockets and a gatling gun!
Anyway hope you enjoy and catch you all soon!
Nice writeup! When the time comes I’m looking to get as many Mi-24s as I can possibly cram into an army list, so the larger size should make for a very intimidating sight from across the board. I wonder if they’re scaled right with the infantry…
My only real complaint about the Mi-24 kit is that there’s no option for a twin 30mm cannon armament. I get that they’re going for simplicity where possible but come on, the twin 30mm cannon variant (I forget which one it is) is one of the most iconic versions of the Mi-24 there is, the option to swap out the machine gun turret on, say, 1 Mi-24 out of every three would be fantastic. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to convert some up and write some homebrew rules for them..
Wow, just wow, these Hinds are really stunning!
Really like what you did here, they look almost real from a short distance.
My compliments, you even made the rotors interesting. The lighter ends give a bit of a moving effect it seems.
I really didn’t like the battlefront sceme, it is way too yellow for use in western europe.
I was also thinking about using more green with tan camo patterns. These stencils give a very nice and crisp effect.
Hope you dont mind if I borrow the colours and technics and ‘try’ it on my Hinds?
Although the dark blue works well underneath, I’m going for the sky blue myself. So still a bit different. 🙂
Do you use the same green kaki and Light green kaki for your vehicles?
Thanks for sharing. I really hope you can share how you paint your armour in a next aricle.
Yes its the same greens as the tanks, when i next do some, i’/ll step by step it